FRONT PAGE CONTRIBUTOR

Tech at Night: Here they go again with the Census. Do not do a comprehensive Communications Act.

Here we go again. The last couple of times, they wanted to use “statistical sampling” to replace the Constitutionally-mandated direct enumeration in the Census. Now they want to use online polls to do the Census.

Let’s be clear: The Obama FCC is terrible, and generally threatens innovation, but I absolutely oppose efforts to do a comprehensive Communications Act bill. It’s nothing against Fred Upton and Greg Walden on this, as they’ve generally been pretty good on these matters. But any huge bill like this is going to get set up by every lobbyist in DC, and it will invariably grow a grab bag of special interest giveaways. A comprehensive Communications Act would become a ‘we have to pass it to find out what’s in it’ moment. Don’t do it. Pass one reform at a time. Find incremental reforms.

Aereo is going to the Supreme Court, in a case that I believe is as important as the VCR Timeshifting case. Innovation, not preferential treatment for big broadcasters, should prevail. Aereo is not copyright infringement anymore than VHS was.